


Two Sides of the Twisted Coin

by PyrettaGrimmling



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Multi, Trans Character, Trans Jace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PyrettaGrimmling/pseuds/PyrettaGrimmling
Summary: Incompleteness comes in many forms. For Jace Beleren, it's a deep seated anxiety that turns their thoughts outwards, fearful of confronting themselves. For Tibalt, it's never having had a place outwith of villainy. Fate twists, and gives new perspective and opportunity.
Relationships: Chandra Nalaar/Nissa Revane, Jace Beleren/Tibalt





	Two Sides of the Twisted Coin

**It had been a month and the nightmares persisted.**

The heat of the desert of Amonkhet beat down on me. Jace Beleren, Planeswalker and member of the Gatewatch. Bolas was ahead, the Eternals were all around, and the fighting was relentless.

"Get inside his head and this is all over." I muttered to myself, bracing and reaching out into Bolas's mind, as Elementals crashed into the ranks of Eternals, and Gideon was batted away by the enraged dragon. Fire crackled all around as the familiar feel of mind magic melded my senses and Bolas's-

"Not so fast, young mage." The voice. That voice. Like ice cracking, like gravel rumbling, but also the syrup of a deep swamp, thick and cloying and maddening. The magic broke down, the struggle between mage and dragon over in a heartbeat as my mind magic turned against me. Trapped inside my own head, paralysed, tormented by visions of fear and doubt _-the bullies at the academy, those moments of dreadful loneliness, all over again-_ as the dreadful talon reached towards me. I couldn't move. I couldn't twitch. My mind was not my own, and no matter how I willed it, there was only that dreadful laughter as I remained motionless. _Move, damnit!_

Then contact. The screaming pain, my mind fragmenting into a million pieces as my body is wracked with agony. The spark ignites-

\- And I wake up in my home on Ravnica, sweating and breathing hard. _We failed. We failed Amonkhet._ _No, we- stop it! That's the past!._ Ugh. My heart was hammering, but outside the birds were singing.

Getting up, and pouring a cup of coffee- Izzet make home coffee machines these days, incredible stuff- I looked out of the front window, sipping. I'd been. . . retired to this comfy little place by Ajani, after we'd gone to Zendikar and I'd come face to face with an Eldrazi Spawn - _reminded me of Emrakul, reminded me of Bolas, and then the fear started: Why me? -_ and. . . frozen up, when I reached for my magic. I couldn't do anything. It felt like that same horrendous moment when Bolas had been reaching towards me and I was trapped inside my own mind. Not until Ajani had split its skull and wrapped his arms around me did I even start to unfreeze, and even then I'd been babbling.

"What's wrong, Jace? What the hell happened there?" He'd asked. Not unkindly, just. . . startled. Afraid.

"I . . . I don't know, I just. . . reached for my powers and they. . .there was. . . I just started hearing Bolas in my head again."

And from there . . . that was that. He nodded, and didn't say anything, for a long while. Just held me till I calmed down.

"Perhaps it's time you took some space to heal. Scars of the mind aren't something I can heal. No magic can." A moment of silence. The softness of his mane, smothering my fear in the fluff that threatened to engulf my head in silken bliss. Sensation being the only mark of time, as shock silenced seemingly the whole plane. "You should find somewhere to retire, for a while. Right now. . . Right now, I don't want to let you come to harm. It goes against the memory of Elspeth. It goes against _me._ " Chandra and Nissa held a barrier, beating back the rest of this pack of spawn, but I wasn't hearing that.

"But my Oath to the Gatewatch-" I started, still shaking and afraid.

"- Is intact, if you take time to care for yourself so that you are the strongest you can be. What use is a blunt spear?" He pauses for a moment, before sighing. "Go to Ravnica. I'll come with you, and use what weight the Gatewatch is worth with the Azorius. We'll find you a place. You'll recover in peace."

I couldn't talk. He was right, of course, but. . . that meant being alone with my fears and my feelings. With every hurt from my past. That was my biggest problem, I suppose. I kept running headfirst into crisis to avoid confronting myself.

And that's how I got here. A cosy little cottage, right on the border between Azorius and Selesnya territory. Out my window was a beautiful vista of a garden. . . all full of birds and flowers and bees and life, humming like a perfect machine, grown to fill the space. Verdant and lush trees laden with fruit, bushes bearing berries, vines crawling along lazy burbling creeks as fish swim below them, feeding on the flies their fecund flowers bring forth. Still sipping my coffee, I considered, and watched the morning world as the Ravnican sun crawled over the horizon. I had no lack of money: my time with the Infinite Consortium saw to that, and I'd been here for a month. Relaxing. Taking care of myself. Losing myself in books and stories and knowledge, instead of in fights.

But that old anxiety was creeping back. The fear of being fake, of this me that I am not being the real Jace. Having your memory fucked with leaves you with some real big issues. Still, these worries of being an actor rather than a real person were. . . older, than my fears brought on by erased memories, now restored. I still hadn't fully explored all those memories, actually- no doubt there was some nasty surprises waiting for me- but I knew these anxieties of being fake went allll the way back to when I was 14. Before the incident with Alhammaret and my father, curse his name, hid my spark from me. I felt like a fake, being with all the older boys. They wanted to be soldiers or warriors, scholars or mages. Me? Magic called to me, of course, but not like. . . these boys wanted it for strength, to prove themselves as stronger and better and "manlier" whatever that meant.

Me, my attraction to magic was like. . . Imagine the most beautiful song you'd ever heard in your life. Imagine it filled every sense, instead of just hearing. Music on every level of your being. It was beautiful perfection, a symphony of sensation that sang to my soul, and quaked in my bones. I wanted to be a part of that perfection, to chase the butterflies. It made me feel whole, it made me feel worthwhile and like I was something. In a society in a state of permanent war, being physically weak was quite a curse. I transcended my body and my limits and became part of this eternal, wondrous harmony.

The other boys wanted to prove their strength and domination over magic. They wanted to rule it- I just wanted to be a part of it. Be subsumed into the perfect song and forget my worries, for a while. Even in the heat of battle, magic had been a beautiful sanctuary for me. My body did things automatically while I sang the song of mana, sang the song of perfection and grace, leaving the flesh behind for the magickal. It had always been a sanctuary- until Bolas turned it against me. _Bolas. Inside my head, talking to me, taunting me-_ And that was enough of that.

I pulled myself away from introspection and my thoughts, and set to cooking some breakfast- fried eggs and "bacon" (it was Simic, so best not to think about it and just enjoy the flavour). This house was for one, but it was a comfy for-one, including a kitchen. It had a study, a bedroom, a kitchen and dining room and even a spare room- Chandra had joked "for when you meet that stud you're looking for", and it took me until she left to realise that she meant a boyfriend. _That was another thing that I'd never had- a love and a partner._ I'd had my fling with Liliana- that went badly wrong- and the one-sided affair with Vraska, which wasn't exactly great. But i'd never really felt attracted to either, really? It more happened to me. I found them both beautiful, don't get me wrong- but attractive? No.

The only people I'd ever found attractive were other men. Men like Gideon. Strong, dependable, capable. I felt safe with Gideon, and so many times I'd dreamt of falling asleep in his arms, secure and protected. He'd seemed so indestructible and permanent. Fixed. Something I could rely on. I'd been meaning to ask him if a relationship was possible and confess my feelings- and then, Bolas tore him from my life. He'd sacrificed himself to save Liliana, which saved us all- because she had control of the Dreadhorde. But Gideon, my castle, my sanctuary, with his windswept black hair and deep soft brown eyes. Those strong arms, that rugged and steeled skin, caressed by scars and muscle under his steel armor that I so yearned to know what lay beneath- _and Bolas took him away._

I pulled myself away from my thoughts again, trying to keep calm and centered and rational, capable of comprehending the equations of magic and the beauty of eternity. Not emotional. Not swayed or irrational. I don't know how Chandra wields her fire when she's all mad, but she does. My magic doesn't work that way. Keep emotion out of the way, Alhammaret had always told me, and ok- he was an evil asshole and I don't regret breaking his brain till he could no longer breathe. But my magic never worked when I was emotional. And when I needed the escape, I needed the focus for magic.

I think I'm going to read for a while. Soak up the sun, and not make any mistakes. Just relax.

**Meanwhile, Tibalt was neck deep in a mistake.**

Well, I didn't think of it as a mistake at the time. But I was neck deep in helping the Rakdos move around some. . . less than legal goods. The Azorius already had me in their big book of "kill on sight and ask no questions" for minor things like maybe murdering a few dozen people - _it's not like they wouldn't do the same, given the chance, they all looked at me the same -_ and now, helping the Rakdos move forty tons of drugs in about two separate nights. Allow me to elaborate. I was taking these, as much as I could carry, planeswalking to a nearby plane- some weird forest world with trees that reach up to the edges of the plane, I dunno, wasn't exactly taxing to get to- and then planeswalking back to Ravnica to the destination. You couldn't enter the Blind Eternities then reenter the plane you came from, you have to stop off somewhere first. It's like. . the Blind Eternities have no friction, nothing to stop you moving once you started until you hit a plane. Only when you hit a plane do you slow down, and it's difficult to turn. Planes are like bubbles of sticky tar on a rain-slick stone.

Which, incidentally, is what the surface of this cliff on this godsforsaken fucking forest ball was covered with. I'd dropped a crate full of the drugs- stuff called Moon Tears, apparently made people really introspective and chilled out, which seemed un-Rakdos to me but what do I know, I'm just a contractor- off a cliff by accident when the local wildlife disturbed me on a half-hour stop off for a breather.

Did I mention this place has centipedes the size of dragons? Yeah. They scream real nice, though, and their bite was _definitely_ venomous so I'd harvested their fangs and poison glands. Anyway, while I was taking my stopover I dropped my cargo down a cliff, which I now had to scale. This cliff was rainslick, aside from the sticky bubbles of tar. I swore as I slid and got caught in another, sliding down the cliff bit by bit. I was never gonna hear the end of it from Drakna Razorquim, showing up soaked in tar. As soon as I had the crate, I'd planeswalk the hell out of here. Getting my grip back on the cliff, I oriented myself- it was about forty feet below me- and I started climbing down. Thinking.

Mostly about what I was gonna use this paycheck for. Yeah, boring, I know, but a guy's gotta have priorities. Like who to stab, mostly. But also, which of Drakna's girls to tussle with? And I mean that in the try-to-kill sense. Yeah. Madam Drakna ran a fighting club, which yes, did double as a brothel, but it was mostly a place for those who want a damn good fight to tussle with some real Rakdos abominations. Mindi was my current fixation: she had two scorpion tails, plus four arms muscled to hell. And so many damn spikes in her armor. Such a good fight, such beautiful screams. . . and you knew she liked it and gave as good as she got.

But the real money for Drakna was selling drugs and offering bets to the audiences. And it was hidden behind the front of a legitimate "club" business, with booze and music and cheap seating, but anyone with the right money or the right words got access to the fights. Plenty of folks had both. I was helping her provide the experience, and she was paying my expenses and my pleasure. It was win-win, as far as I was concerned.

Dropping down to the bottom of the cliff, I reached out to the crate- idly stabbing a small insect on top of it- and gathered my focus. Reaching out to the veil beyond this world, feeling it before me and ripping it asunder I launched myself into the inky black Eternities. The sheer oppressive darkness of it around me, I shot out into the night between planes, aimed straight for Ravnica. I was a trail of red crimson lightning through the Blind Eternities, lighting up uncountable infinities with my presence oh-so-briefly.

Foom. At least, I felt like that was the noise my entrance should make, but observably apparently planeswalker's arrivals were silent. Annoying, cause I'd like to startle someone with my sudden arrival one day by frying them, but that would have to be left to my magic.


End file.
